


And the Sky Full of Stars

by Canttouchthis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Draco Malfoy, F/M, Fluff, Time Travel, Unspeakable Hermione Granger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canttouchthis/pseuds/Canttouchthis
Summary: Draco stumbles two months into the past and has a startling realization. A short story about the small moments that matter most.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	And the Sky Full of Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElizColl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizColl/gifts).



> A short story for ElizColl - thank you for all of your help!!
> 
> Thank you to rhysenne for the Beta assist on this story.

The wall was innocuous enough — a structure of rocks held together with mud. At first glance, it appeared rather pathetic, like the smallest bit of pressure would cause it to crumble.

Draco gently pressed his hand against a bit of quartz along the wall, wincing when the unexpectedly sharp edge pressed into his palm. He stared at the blood oozing from the wound, frowning at the cut.

“Draco, what are you doing?” Hermione called from a few feet down, meticulously inspecting a length of the wall with a pair of Omnioculars, her hands safely ensconced in gloves. When she finally turned to him, her eyes shone momentarily before a barely audible murmur escaped her lips, “And the sky full of stars..”

He opened his mouth, a question on the tip of his tongue, when he felt his stomach drop and winced at a booming  _ clap _ . When he opened his eyes, he was no longer at the Peruvian wall in Sacsayhuaman. 

It was suddenly night. The stars were all wrong for Peru. He recognized Orion and the North Star — mainstays of the Northern Hemisphere. 

“Malfoy?” He whipped his head to the sound of Hermione’s voice. She stood next to a familiar apparatus — a magical telescope of sorts. Her head tilted at him in question. “Can you hand me that?”

He frowned and looked down, noticing the stack of tools. “Er...”

She huffed, walking over and grabbing a cylindrical mechanism. “Are you even paying attention?”

She moved on, returning to her magical telescope and ignoring Draco’s increasing panic. The moment was familiar — her dark blue puffy coat and grey hat scratched at the back of his mind.

But none of it made sense. He had just been in Peru — and now he was — somewhere else.

The wood looked familiar, and as he took in the scene before him — Hermione and all of her accoutrements — he realized where the déjà vu had come from.

He looked up, and the stream of shooting stars confirmed his tentative hypothesis. 

Something in that wall, or perhaps the rock itself, had pushed him backwards in time. He would have been more surprised, but given Hermione’s line of work, it was only a matter of time before something reality-altering happened to him.

They had been working together for nearly six months. Hermione was an accident-prone Unspeakable, and after receiving a particularly gruesome injury on the job, Draco had been tasked with her safety.

It wasn’t clear at first which of them was more unhappy with the assignment. Hermione felt having an Auror alongside her was some sort of affront to her abilities, in spite of her habit of nearly getting killed. Draco had scoffed at being assigned “babysitting” duty, as he called it.

It only took two weeks for Hermione to unintentionally trigger a curse at a cave in Panama, and Draco’s timely intervention was the only thing that saved her. Since then, they had developed a healthy level of respect for each other’s work; Draco acknowledged that what Hermione did was risky, while she recognized that he was effective at his job.

“You’re acting strange,” she said, her eyes once more focused on him. 

He tried to recall the specifics of this moment the first time he experienced it, but it was an odd blur. But suddenly, he remembered what Hermione said to him right before he was pulled from Peru:

_ “And the sky full of stars.” _

“Hermione,” he walked up to her, “something weird is happening.”

She narrowed her eyes, her mouth scrunched to the side. “You called me by my first name.”

He opened his mouth, but the words died on the tip of his tongue. “What?”

“You called me ‘Hermione’,” she pointed out once more, brows furrowed.

He tried to recall when they had stopped referring to one another by their surnames, but the transition had felt seamless, like the natural progression of their working relationship.

He noticed her becoming rigid, the way she stood back a few feet, perhaps uncomfortable by the weight of his gaze.

He could admit, in the  _ present, _ or the  _ future _ depending on the point of view, that they had been on the precipice of something. Late nights spent with bottles of Firewhiskey and long Jeep rides through magically intractable regions had led to moments where he was certain there was something more between them.

“What’s going on?” she asked warily.

“I think I’m from two months in the future,” he said simply. 

Her eyes went wide, and it was a testament to her line of work that she didn’t immediately laugh in his face. “What?” She bit the inside of her cheek, wearing a calculating expression. Her hand brushed against her thigh pocket, where Draco knew her wand resided.

Draco nodded. “We were in Peru — at the wall in Sacsayhuaman. I touched the wall — ”

“You  _ touched _ it?” she exclaimed. “And I didn’t stop you?”

He paused, wondering  _ why _ she hadn’t warned him. “No…”

She looked contemplative, her gaze shifting over him in a way that was entirely unnerving. Eventually she took a few tentative steps in his direction before grabbing her wand and casting a few wordless spells.

“But why are you  _ here _ ?” She mumbled the words aloud, but it seemed she was talking to herself.

“So you knew — or the you in the future knows — that something like this could happen?” he asked with a frown, confusing himself in the strange roundabout questioning.

“Of course,” she confirmed, walking around him as though he were one of her specimens.

“Stop.” He grabbed her wrist, forcing her to stand still. Her eyes bulged, staring at the point of contact. Her cheeks reddened.

She shouldn’t _ be _ this nervous — there was no logical reason for it. Unless…

“Hermione.” He kept his hand firmly on her wrist, determined to keep her attention. “What did the wall do to me?”

She blinked, her mouth opening and closing before she finally responded. “I obviously haven’t researched it myself, but the wall is quite fascinating. Did you know that there are rumours that actual extraterrestrials visited it once? ‘Higher order beings,’ or something of the like — ”

“Hermione.” 

She exhaled. “It’s said the wall has some sort of magical properties — but not of this Earth. It can send a person to a moment in time — to a moment that meant something to them.”

He frowned. “And it took me here? To when you watched the Perseid meteor shower?”

She nodded and her eyes shifted to where he still held her wrist. He let go, but she remained by his side.

“But why?” Draco was trying to understand the logic behind such a thing — what was the point?

“The magic—it supposedly belongs to beings who do not experience the world as we do—where we traverse the physical, they move through time. So for them, this would be a gift—like being Apparated to your favorite place.” she explained softly.

He swallowed. “So it somehow brought me here? To this moment?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Though of course, there’s a possibility the theory is wrong and it’s just arbitrary...”

As he watched the cool evening breeze play against her curls and the slight turn of her lip while she continued to theorize on the matter, he suddenly remembered what happened on this night, two months ago. After Hermione had finished her analysis of the Perseids—they decided to remain in the wood, lying side by side on a transfigured picnic blanket and watched the sky full of stars.

It was the moment he realized she was whimsical, that beyond her logical mind lay a depth he hadn’t known. 

“What?” she asked, shifting uncomfortably. He wondered what she saw—what expression on his face caused her concern.

“It’s you,” he said it quietly, almost on accident. “I saw you for the first time today—or I will see you for the first time. And the sky full of stars...” he reached out, his hand brushing her hair. She looked unsure but remained steady, her eyes boring into his.

He felt the pull in his stomach once more and found himself back at the wall in Peru, two months later—or in the present. As far as he could tell, no time had passed since he stood gaping at his bloody hand.

“Draco.” Hermione was next to him. Her countenance was tentative and her eyes showed a clear mix of fear and excitement. He wondered how it all looked from her perspective—did he disappear? Or was it as though no time had passed?

“Hermione,” he started, though he wasn’t sure what to say. He considered what was given to him—a flash—a moment in time that mattered even if he hadn’t immediately realized it. “The sky was full of stars,” he told her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her eyes lit up and she smiled brilliantly. “I couldn’t—or it would never have happened.”

“And you wanted it to happen?” he questioned.

She nodded, that spark of fear once more evident. “I didn’t understand it at first—but over the last two months, it became more and more apparent…” There were unspoken words—and he was filled with memories of the little moments.

He thought about how her eyes lit up when she encountered a new mystery; about how they would argue but it was never malicious—and he always felt better for it. Like her perspective, however wrong it was, enriched his own.

He stepped forward, circling her wrist with his fingers as he’d done five minutes earlier—or was it two months ago? She looked up at him, a question clear in her gaze.

And he kissed her, feeling a sense of closure and relief by the simple action. Like he had traveled momentarily through time for this. She pressed her gloved hands into his hips, pushing them together. He could feel the smile playing on her lips, the faint sigh escaping her throat.

He pulled back, a thousand thoughts swirling in his mind. “I don’t understand—how did it work? I went back—but I had always gone back?”

She nodded. “I think so—I always remembered those few moments, at least.”

“But what does that mean? That it was inevitable?” He frowned, stuck on the ramifications.

“Like fate?” she questioned.

“Sure, I guess I’m trying to understand—what would have happened had I not touched the rock.” He brushed a hand through his hair, suddenly rather alarmed by the possibility. “Would you have suddenly remembered something differently?”

She twitched her eye slightly. “I would never have remembered it then…” she trailed off appearing deep in thought. 

“Exactly—so the last two months—every moment that led me to this wall. Was it all predetermined?” he questioned, “Did I have any power not to touch the wall?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it was predetermined—rather, I think I only had the memories from two months ago because you  _ chose _ to touch the wall. That there is still free will even if the experience suggests otherwise.”

“So somehow it was both inevitable that I would go back, yet it was also my choice?” he said slowly, trying to wrap his head around the suggestion.

“I have to believe we have free will—that our choices are our own. You  _ chose _ to make all those decisions-”

“But did I?” he interrupted, swallowing uncomfortably, his mind heavy from the dilemma.

She grabbed his hand. “Just because from  _ our _ limited point of view, it didn’t appear we had a choice—I believe we still did. That our actions have meaning, even if at the time they appear inevitable.”

There was something in her words that brought him a sense of relief. “If this was the moment it brought us to, then perhaps I should stop worrying about it.”

She smiled. “Perhaps.”

_ Fin _

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story is taken from an episode of Babylon 5...


End file.
